Safe Inside
by Tentaculiferous
Summary: After a flood makes the trainee's dorms unusable, everyone is relocated to a new base. And by "new base" they mean the old, long-forgotten training camp of yesteryear. The cabins are old, the furniture is musty, there's holes in the walls, leaky ceilings, and even worse, there's only one bed per cabin...[Femslash, F/F, Mikasa x Annie]


That April, it rained.

And it rained.

And it rained.

The trainees still had to do all of their normal exercises and drills. Snow and rain did not slow Titans down after all, and as soldiers, no one would get out of combat or horse-riding or a long-run, and get to sit inside curled up next to the fire with a good book, just because of a little rain.

But it wasn't a little rain. In the end, it was so much rain that the dormitories, the mess hall, the kitchens, all but one supply shed, were submerged in water.

The trainees were evacuated to higher ground. Higher ground, in this case being the old, long unused training barracks near Staubbeutal.

There was much grumbling as they were marched to higher ground. It was a cold spring, rations were extra tight due to the storehouse being flooded. The replacement food supplies that were requested were being sent straight to the new camp, and they were making due with what had been salvaged from the flooded storehouse. The untouched storehouse had held mostly replacement harnesses, with a small supply of hardtack.

Everyone hated the hardtack, and when Sasha was caught with a can of tinned peas, Shadis himself had to intervene in the scuffle that erupted as more than one trainee tried to acquire the vegetables for themselves.

If they thought the food situation was terrible, they would find the bedding situation at the new camp even worse.

Instead of the large, well-sealed dormitory the girls were used to, they were led to two "cabins" (sheds would have been a better word) that they could sleep in.

"Ugh, I really feel sorry for the trainees from back in the day." Mina said.

The wood of the cabins was old, graying, and there were gaps and holes all too visible. They all stared at the terrible new sleeping quarters, dreading what the inside would look like.

Mikasa was the one to take the initiative and open the doors. There was no use in standing out in the rain forever, getting wetter and colder.

The door slowly creaked in. Mikasa held her lantern up high, the better for everyone to see in.

The inside was...disgusting, but honestly, not as bad as any of them had expected. A single large bed occupied most of the cabin's space, but the mattress on it, while old looking, seemed perfectly serviceable and largely unstained. A thick rug covered the floor, but other than that, the room was bare. The holes in the walls led enough of a draft through to keep the place from getting too dusty.

The girls of the 104th though, were not meant to sleep in this room.

Ymir darted past Mikasa and into the room, dragging a spluttering Krista behind her.

"Seeya suckers!" she yelled and slammed the door shut.

Before any of them could think to move, they heard her slamming the bar down over the door, barricading it shut.

"What a bitch." Mina said.

It was an unusual statement for her, but they all agreed the sentiment was well-deserved.

"Well...what should we do now?" Sasha asked.

"Let's check the other cabin."

They did. Before they even opened the door, they were eyeing it was dismay. They'd opened the other cabin first because it had been the best, the most intact. This one had even larger holes in the wood, and, as they discovered when they went inside, in the ceiling as well. No warm rug covered the old, rotting oak boards that was the floor of the cabin.

Instead of the king sized bed the other cabin had held, this one was at best a double.

"Oh no. Oh hell no. That's it—I'm just going to bunk with Franz tonight." Hannah fumed.

She stormed off, apparently in search of the boy's sleeping quarters.

"We could probably break the door down on the other cabin." Mina suggested.

"Then we'd have a door-sized hole to deal with." Annie said dourfully.

They all eyed the narrow bed.

"I guess we better just get it over with and try to sleep." Mina said.

"Dibs on the spot against the wall!" Sasha said.

"You just want the spot against the wall because it's warmest." Annie said.

"In this cabin? Look at the hole in that wall. Let her have it. The other edge will be warmer—dibs on that!" Mina said.

That left Annie and Mikasa to the middle.

They all climbed onto the bed. The cold was bad enough that only Sasha had opted to shed her jacket. She used it to block the hole in the wall.

She was the first to doze off.

It was an uncomfortable situation; they were all shoved up tight against each other, barely able to move for fear of elbowing or headbutting one of the others. Still, they all remained polite and agreeable—at first.

Then Annie felt the first drip. It landed right on her nose, which was not a small target. Still, she only had to move back an inch to be clear of the drip. She attempted to do this, backing up just a little and gentle prodding Mikasa's front with her elbow, signaling her to scoot back.

Mikasa ignored her signal. So Annie increased the pressure of said signal. And increased it. And increased it. Until she was wildly slamming her elbow into Mikasa's chest.

Mikasa said nothing, and Annie was actually beginning to suspect she was asleep, though how anyone could sleep through the elbow jabbings was a mystery to her.

Mikasa was not asleep though, as Annie learned, when she lashed her leg out and kicked Annie's calf.

It was no teasing girls-slumber-party kick either; she kicked like a mule. Annie cursed and sat up.

"You idiot, I'm getting rained on here. Move back."

"No."

"No?!"

Mina sat up as well, yawning.

"Annie, there's a wet spot between me and Mikasa. She can' t move back any further without lying in it."

That stumped Annie for a moment. She had a solution before too long though.

"Switch places with me Mikasa."

Mikasa seemed to agree, sitting up and making room for Annie to take her spot. She then slid into Annie's previous place, and attempted to go to sleep.

Annie lay in Mikasa's spot, listening for the tell-tale drip of the water against a human face. There was none. Mikasa, apparently, had a nose small enough to escape the annoying drip from the roof. She'd also managed to avoid the wet spot, back when she had lain where Annie was now, but Annie wasn't so lucky.

She could feel the spot, sodden and cold, against her side.

"Switch spots with me Mina."

"No!" Mina hissed. She was tired of the dumb bed drama, the annoyingness of being stuffed into a too small room, in a ridiculously undersized bed, in awful conditions, hungry, cold, and grubby.

So when Annie spitefully yanked the one blanket they shared all the way off of Mina and over to her side, she was at the end of her rope.

She grabbed the end of the blanket and began yanking it back in her direction, so hard it was pulled entirely off of the sleeping Sasha.

Annie began to tug back.

"I need it to cover up the wet spot." she said.

They grappled over it for a silent, tense minute. Mina couldn't regain it however, once Annie had finally gotten it back from her.

"That's it." she snapped. I'll go sleep in the boy's dorms with Thomas. He's always been sweet on me."

She got up and opened the door. For a brief moment, her silhouette was outlined against the sky, which was lit up with lightning. Then she'd slammed the old door angrily behind her, so hard it sagged on its hinges.

That left Sasha, Mikasa, and Annie to share the bed. Now, there was much more space for everyone to sleep. Mina had been a slim girl, but even so, it was still a tight fit.

Annie settled down closer to the edge, away from the wet spot, and began to doze.

It seemed all would go quietly that night until...

Mikasa kicked Sasha in the back.

The girl yelped, starting up.

"What the hell, Mikasa!?" she shouted.

"Sorry. I kick in my sleep." she murmured.

"Well knock it off." she said, rubbing her back.

She settled down next to the wall again. Sasha was an easy sleeper. It never took her long to drift off, and she could sleep under the most difficult, uncomfortable situations. As such, it took her only a few minutes to get back to sleep.

Mikasa waited a good fifteen minutes, letting her drift deeper into sleep, and then kicked her again, this time on the heinie.

"Mikasa! Knock it. Off." she spat out.

Off to sleep again.

In the end, it only took three more well-paced kicks from Mikasa before Sasha gave in. She begged Annie to switch spots with Mikasa, but Annie, citing her blade of a nose, refused.

"You know what? If you guys want to be mean, and be bed hogs, and want it all to yourself, that's fine. Ymir always said she'd love for me to join her and Krista sometime—she'll let me in her cabin."

And so Sasha put her uniform jacket back on, and stormed out of the cabin.

Mikasa and Annie lay there for a moment, utterly still. When they were finally certain she was gone, and not coming back, they sat up.

"You think she knows what Ymir and Krista are—?" Annie raised her eyebrows at Mikasa.

They both busted up. It was harder to tell with Mikasa, because she'd covered most of her face with that scarf, but Annie could see the mirth in her eyes.

"You think she knows what we are...?" Annie asked, softly and with a hint of mischief.

Mikasa shook her head slightly, and Annie tugged Mikasa's scarf down her chin, revealing her favorite feature.

A pair of soft, waiting lips that were hers to claim...now that her nosy teammates were out of the way.

Annie wasted no time. She put her arms around Mikasa's neck, and kissed her. They sank down onto the mattress, and worked on putting it to good use. The rain dripped down the back of Mikasa's neck, but she didn't mind. That was all the more reason to take her shirt off—couldn't have her clothes getting wet in this cold weather. Just to be safe, she took Annie's off for the same reason. Just to be safe.


End file.
